The clarion., 1887-09-28
ON KEEPING ADIaRY.

Many people regard the keeping of
q diary as n meritorious occupation.
The young are urged to take up this
cross; il is supposed to benefit girls es-
pecially. Whether women should do
II is to some minds not an open ques-
ton, although there is on record the
case of the Frene hman who tried to
shoot himself when he heard that his
wife was keeping a diary. This in
tention of suicide may have arisen
from his fear that his wife was keen
ing record of his own peccadilloes
rather than of her own thoughts and
emotions. Or it may have been from
tne fear that she was putting down
those little conjugal remarks which
the husband always dislikes to have
thrown up TO him. and which woman
can usually quote accurately, it NAV
be for years, it may be fer ever, with
out the help of a diary. So we can ap-
preeiate without approving the terror
OF the Frenehman at living on and on
IN the same house with a growing
diary. For it is not simply that this
little book of Judgment is there in
black and white. but that the maker
of 1t is increasing her power of minute
observation and analytic expression.
In discussing the question whether a
woman should keep a diary it is un-
derstood that it is not a mere memoir
andum of events and engagements,
such as both men and women of bust
ness and affairs necessarily keep, but
the daily record which sets down feel
ings, emotions and impressions, and
crlticlses people and records opinions.
But this is question that applies to
men as well as TO women.
1t has been assumed that the diary
serves two good purposes; it is a dis
ciplinary exercise for the keeper of it
and perhaps a moral guide; and it has
great historical value. As TO the first,
it may be helpful to order, method.
discipline. and it may be an indul-
gence of spleen, whims and unwhole-
some criticism and coneeit. The habit
of saying right out what YOU think of
everybody is not good one, and the
record of such opinions and impress
sions, while it is not so mischievous to
the public as talking may be, is harm
full to the recorder. And when we
come to the historical value of the
diary, we confess to growing sus-
picion of it. 1t is such deadly weap-
on when it comes to light after the
passage of years. 1t has an authority
which the spoken words of its keeper
never had. 1t is er parte, and it can
not be cross-eXamined The supposi-
ton is that being contemporaneous
with the events spoken of, it must be
true, and that it is an honest record.
Now, as a matter of fact, we doubt if
people are any more honest as to them
selves or others in diary than out of
1T; and rumors, reported facts and i'm
pressions set down daily in the heat
and haste of the prejudicial hour are
about as likely to be wrong as right
Two diaries of the same events rarely
agree. And in turning over an old
diary we never know what to allow
for the personal equation. The diary
is greatly relied on by the writers of
history, but the Drawer doubts if
there is any such liar in the world,
even when the keeper of it is honest.
1t is certain to be partisan, and more
liable to be misinformed than a news
paper, which exercises some care in
view of immediate publicity. The
writer happens to know of two diaries
which record, on the testimony of
eye-witnesses, the circumstances of
the last hours of Garfield, and they
differ utterly in essential particulars.
One of these may turn up fifty years
from now, and be accepted as true.
An infinite amount of gossip goes into
diaries about men and women that
would not stand the test of moments
contemporary publication. But by
and-by it may all be used to smirch or
brighten unjustly some ones charac-
ter. Suppose man in the Army OF
the Potomac had recorded daily all
his opinions of men and of events
Reyding it over now, with more light
and juster knowledge of character
and of measures, is it not probable
that he would find it tissue of mis-
conceptions? Few things are actually
what they seem to-day; they are col
ored both by misapprehensions and by
moods. If a man writes letter or
makes report of an occurrence for inn
mediate publication, subject to uni
versal criticism, there is some restraint
on him. In his private letter, or diary
especially, he is apt to set down what
comes into his head at the moment,
often without much effort at verifica-
tion.- Charles Dudley Warner IN Har-
per's Magazine.